Command-And-Control Management Is For Dinosaurs

Most of us grew up with a management style that is so firmly embedded in our culture, we're not even aware of it. We just think of it as "management," not as a particular management style -- but it is! It is the command-and-control style of management, and it hurts us every day.

Command-and-control management relies on rules like these, the same ones we have heard and seen in action since we were children:

• I'm the manager, so I make the rules.

• Your job is to do what I say.

• If you mess up, I'll let you know about it.

• If you don't hear from me, that means you're doing fine.

• You'd better be careful not to make a mistake, or cross me!

• Respect for the boss is the most important attribute you can demonstrate.

• I make the policies, and you follow them.

This style of management may have worked well during the days of the Roman Empire and maybe even during the Industrial Revolution, but we are in the Knowledge Economy now! Companies don't win just by executing perfectly. They have to have new ideas. They have to innovate to stay in business, much less to prosper. You don't get innovation by bringing the hammer down on your employees.

Old-school command-and-control managers keep track of employees' missteps and infractions. They make people afraid to breathe wrong when they should be saying "Try stuff! If it fails, we'll know not to try it again, or to try it differently the next time." My old boss always told us "I don't have time to tell you what to do. You know better than I do what to do, anyway!"

That's how people grow -- not by being hemmed in with rules and policies designed to keep people coloring inside the lines, but by coloring outside the lines and collaborating to generate better solutions together than they could do individually.

Command-and-control management is still popular with dinosaur companies whose market share dwindles every day. Autocratic managers believe that nobody they could ever hire will be as smart as they are. They hurt their organizations, its customers and their shareholders, but their mantra is "It's my way or the highway!"

If you work in a dinosaur organization that policies its employees to death, it can hurt your health. You owe it yourself to look around and see who else is hiring. You can launch a stealth job search and get a new job before you quit the old one. It takes time and energy but you will be amazed to see how your mojo grows during your stealth job search process.

People tell us "The minute I had my first job interview in my stealth job search, my confidence grew. I told the recruiter that I had to interview after hours because I couldn't leave my current job to go to the interview, and she understood. On the interview, I was able to talk about why I want to leave without bashing my current workplace. I talked about needing more challenges and wanting to stretch my muscles. It felt great to have that conversation!"

Photo by Dr. James Campbell

The old working world is going away, and the organizations that are fastest to get the memo and shift their cultures are the ones who will keep growing and innovating over the next thirty years. The organizations who pretend it's still 1955 will lose talent and lose customers. We have to wake up and realize that our ability to snag talented people and hang onto them is our only sustainable competitive advantage -- but it's an incredible benefit to have!

I worked for a company called U.S. Robotics as we grew from 100 employees to close to ten thousand folks all over the world. We hired tons of people through trust, not fear. We did not poke and prod and measure our employees on silly metrics that don't matter. In a decade we fired two or three people for attendance problems -- no more than that. People rise up when they are treated like adults. That is what command-and-control managers don't understand.

If you are new to Leading with a Human Voice, here are steps to try:

• Look at your Employee Handbook and your policy manual, and start conversations about them. Do you really need all the policies and rules you've got? Any rule that springs from fear ("Here is a terrible thing that happened once and we want it never to happen again!") is a waste of your limited time and energy and a very bad message to send to your employees about the mutual trust in your organization. Certain policies are required by law, but most of our Employee Handbooks and policy manuals could disappear tomorrow.

• At every staff meeting and training session, talk about your company culture. Talk about issues that need to be aired instead of pushing them under the rug. Let people express their feelings. Get everything out in the open.

• If your CEO or President is stuck in the past, show him or her this column to introduce him or her to the notion that command-and-control management is the leadership equivalent of a fax machine. Its days are done!

• Soften your recruiting process to make it less of a sifting-and-sorting, clerical ordeal and more of a human process. Get your interviewers off the script and into organic conversations about what your company is trying to do and why it needs help.

• Teach your managers not to write people up and put them on probation when something goes wrong, but to explore to find out where the energetic disturbance is that is slowing your company down or causing conflict. Ditch your Progressive Discipline policy and begin to problem-solve with your employees all the time. See how your culture gets nimbler, friendlier and more responsive to your customers' needs!

It's a new day, and the Human Workplace is already here. You can help your organization step into the new-millennium world of work, no matter what your position is. You can start conversations about culture, fear and trust. Your muscles will grow when you do!

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I was a Fortune 500 HR SVP for 10 million years, but I was an opera singer before I ever heard the term HR. The higher I got in the corporate world, the more operatic the action became. I started writing about the workplace for the Chicago Sun-Times in 1997. Now I write for ...